musical mediumhttps://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com
notes about notes for your eyes for your earsMon, 23 Apr 2018 23:22:47 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngmusical mediumhttps://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com
Budget for (my) Arthttps://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/budget-for-my-art/
https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/budget-for-my-art/#commentsFri, 10 Feb 2012 01:22:34 +0000http://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/?p=766Continue reading →]]>Pretty much anybody who considers her/himself an artist has been asked to do pro bono work by a friend or family member, another artist, or somebody representing a business or larger production. The act of asking for free art isn’t what’s wrong here–there are scenarios in which this is perfectly appropriate–the problem is when there is a budget but art isn’t accounted for, even when deemed necessary to the success of the production. Event organizers need to understand that if they require professional art for their event (off of which they intend to profit), the artist needs to be paid.

Common misconception: The vast majority of musicians/photographers/graphic designers/etc. are hobbyists who have loads of free time in which to leisurely pursue their artsy-fartsy trade.

Fact: There are many amateur artists. However, if the expectation is one of professional-quality art, it needs to be funded accordingly, especially for an event that is generating money.

In my personal experience, drama productions tend to have issues with budgeting money to pay musicians. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some fantastic experiences with theater companies (most notably the Walking Shadow Theatre Co.), and I love actors/directors/dancers/stage managers/lighting technicians/etc. in general. The problem is that, since the people managing the finances/organization of drama productions are almost exclusively actors/directors who focus the vast majority of their energy on casting and figuring out how to pay the best actors/dancers possible, musicians are frequently hired as an afterthought. And once they’ve got a killer cast, dependable tech crew and a rockin’ venue, there’s nothing left to pay the musicians. I totally get it, and I respect that kind of dedication to one’s art, but an artist is an artist and we’re all in this together… right? We’re all the same kind of crazy for wanting to do art for a living, and in order to eat we all need to get paid living wages. Now, it’s worth noting that it’s hard to pay anybody living wages off of the revenue generated by small theater productions, so oftentimes everyone is starving, which somehow makes it okay. Not that it’s okay to starve… but you know what I mean.

A unique approach to procuring pro bono work is the “performance opportunity,” where someone extends an invitation to participate in their production, the only compensation for which is the great exposure it will afford you. Sometimes, if exposure is what you’re after and you can afford the time commitment, these gigs can be great–but only if it means that the time/effort that would/should have been invested in procuring the funds to pay you is still available for promoting/appreciating you. This is a different kind of budgeting, but not necessarily less meaningful. When somebody goes out of their way to publicly show genuine appreciation, it’s worth a whole hell-of-a-lot, on both professional and spiritual levels. But it can be hard to tell going into a gig if you’ll be treated well, which requires a rather well-developed judge of character (and there’s a damn steep learning curve).

Here are some very effective techniques that one can use to increase the chance that he/she will be afforded this kind of non-monetary compensation, all of which fall under the ‘good person’ heading:

Be genuine

Do your best

Treat others with respect

Collaborate as much as you damn can

Project confidence!

By no means do I always act this way, but in the situations where I have, there’s always been somebody there to notice and go out of the way to make sure I feel appreciated. And I’d like to propose that, as artists, it’s our responsibility to be that person going out of the way for our peers, whenever the opportunity arises, because that’s a big part of what the scene is all about. Let’s not just budget money to pay fellow musicians, but set aside time/energy and genuine thoughtfulness, and even some love. I’m lucky enough to be part of an incredibly supportive arts community here in the Twin Cities, and everything I know about how this should work is based off of the many inspiring interactions I’ve had with some amazing individuals, and y’all know who you are.

–This is a post I originally put up on SoKillingMan.com, so if you like what you see, give it a visit!–

A big reason why I learned how to transcribe is so that I can write out charts for myself, and other musicians I’m playing with. It seems like there’s always new repertoire for everyone to learn, members to add/replace or a sub to train, and the reality is that not everybody does their homework. There’s not always time, and you don’t always have the $$ to pay somebody who’s willing or able to put in the work and accurately learn/memorize a part.

My first experience getting paid for a transcription was when I was playing cello in a rather bizarre ‘funk band’ that played in-between boxing matches at a local fitness club. Occasionally we had accompanimental pole dancers (to be fair they probably saw us at accompanying them) and one time our sound guy was in a boxing match and got pummeled so bad he couldn’t mix us for the rest of the night. The name of our band was Funktasia – here’s one of our <old set lists> to give you an idea.

So the first difficult transcription I did for Funktasia was when the band leader wanted to sing Late in the Evening by Paul Simon and we needed horn charts for the trumpet, alto, and tenor players. This is the first stuff I wrote when I sat down to transcribe it:

All I set out to do was write down the rhythm of the horn line, which is all that gibberish directly underneath the title, Late in the Evening, which I underlined so emphatically. Here’s sound files of these sections:

In my experience, transcribing the rhythm before plugging in the pitches makes for a much more efficient and accurate process, and it’s really manageable to do the first step by hand because you don’t even need staff paper. When I try to transcribe pitch and rhythm all in one pass, it can be overwhelming, especially with fast arpeggiated passages. But once the rhythm is all squared away, it’s just a matter of plugging in the pitches, which is so damn satisfying to do.

‘Plugging in the pitches’ can be done by hand, or I really like to do it using music notation software, which in my case is Finale. For a little mini-finale tutorial on ‘plugging in the pitches’ <click here>.

And actually, before I even start entering any notes in Finale, I get the general structure all squared away. First off, make sure you have the right number of measures by listening through the tune once or twice while counting the number of measures in each distinct section. You can see I’ve written that down at the bottom-left corner of the page above. Here’s how my chart might have looked before I entered any notes (probably not this pretty):

For the sake of fitting it all in one page I condensed the rests, but everything else is a great idea to have before entering notes. One really great technique is putting double barlines between phrases, even when using multimeasure rests as shown above. This way, when the trumpet player is counting out 14 bars of rest during the verse, he/she’ll be more likely to hear the two 5-bar antecedent phrases plus a 4-bar consequent phrase, and know exactly where they are all the time. It’s also great to have a name for each section, even if you don’t know exactly what to call it. What I call the ‘chorus’ is really more of an instrumental bridge, maybe? I dunno, but as long as it’s consistent, it’s useful.

(The recording ends with a sweet fade out, but we decided to add those last three notes just like the 1st horn section and end the tune that way)

I notated one more thing by hand that I haven’t mentioned yet, and that was a distillation of the rhythm Steve Gadd (drummer) is playing over the whole tune. What a sick rhythm! You can tell I got a little obsessed with it because it’s notated 3 diff. ways in 4 places on the page…haha. The two rhythms Gadd is superimposing over each other are rather difficult to learn to play simultaneously, but once they’re written down you can see how they nest together and it’s much easier to learn. Try it!

The above recordings were composed by Adam Conrad, performed by Zachary Scanlan (violin), David Sutton (violin), Erica Burton (viola) and me (cello), and we had our usual all-star team of recording engineers Dane Hoppe and Graham Wakeman, and rehearsal/production assistant Ben Kelly. Adam has organized, conducted and composed music for 5 or 6 of these projects now, and each one runs a little bit smoother and produces a better product.

We rehearsed and recorded this score all in one 3-hour session with minimal technical or musical problems. This is an ensemble and style of music that I’ve never heard Adam even attempt, and I was blown away by the sounds he was getting out of our string quartet. You can hear quite a bit of Haydn and Ravel’s influence on the sonorities and counterpoint Adam employs – and he must have been listening when I complained about G# major in the past, because he wrote some pretty string-friendly keys this time around.

To avoid gushing about what great players Zach, David and Erica are, I’ll just direct you to listen to the recordings. Damn they sound good! A lot of the music was written in a high vs. low format, which meant I got to team up with Erica which was a blast. I felt like the two of us really locked in together on ‘Curiosity’ with that great pizzicato figure – so much fun to play! We almost had too much fun, but I don’t think we were disruptive enough to piss off Adam. haha.

Adam Composed these tracks for Chris Jopp‘s newest film The Well, described by Chris as: “[a film] about the fear and anxieties that young people experience when they first become curious about the opposite sex.” Check out the behind-the-scenes video Chris made of The Well by clicking <here> or one of the stills above/below (recording studio footage starts around 6:30).

Chris is an MCAD graduate and we met him when Adam composed the score for his last project, Harold Crumb (you can watch the short documentary on the scoring process of Harold <here>). I love Chris’ visuals and the subtle emotions he gets out of his actors, and this film is everything I liked about Crumb and much much more. I can’t wait to see his next project, and hopefully be part of it in some way!

Bloodshed Love (September 12-13)
My composer friend Adam Conrad wrote the musical score for a fantastic short film directed by MCTC student Mason Makram, and enlisted me to play on the recording. Adam and I have worked together on quite a few projects like this and they keep getting better and better, no exception here. Adam likes working with me because I give him everything I’ve got (including tons of constructive criticism haha) and I keep coming back because he always writes me cello solos and he’s a tolerable person. There’s really nothing like recording a film score without a click, conducted to the film with the full ensemble. It’s a huge rush, and huge pain in the ass, and so worth it. I just attended the premier at the St. Anthony Theatre the other night, having only seen snippets of the film, and I was totally blown away by how it came together. Keep checking back into the Bloodshed Love <facebook page> for info regarding the movie’s release on DVD and/or other media.

So Killing, Man – music transcription blog (October 2 – present)
This project, brain-fathered by good friend and sax player Ben Doherty, is “dedicated to the study of improvisational music through transcription and analysis.” Ben, Adam Meckler and I are taking turns posting our transcriptions on Sundays, and we will continue to do so until the internet is full. Or if we die, or something. Both scenarios are quite distant and hypothetical, so if you like transcriptions of improvised music you should check this out! If nothing else it’s a clear window into what insane musicians like us think about, and what we like to listen to. You can take a quick view of my transcription by clicking HERE. The name of this blog is derived from a ridiculous internet video called Jazz Robots, which is an un-prisoner-takingly accurate satire of the way jazz musicians talk. **warning: use of F-word in linked video**

Todd Harper – composer/pianist (October 14th – present)
I met Todd through a mutual friend of ours, Brian Roessler (bassist), and a couple weeks ago he invited me to play a duo gig with him at the Black Dog. We read down some of his charts and made up a whole bunch of stuff on the spot, and really had a blast. I joined him again the next week with his improv ensemble Full Moon Rabbit, and that was just a total riot. I don’t know if I’ve ever had so much fun at a gig, and I got to play with/meet some really great local musicians in the process. We didn’t read a single note of music the whole night and relied completely on our eyes/ears to make everything happen. I’m really excited to see where this all goes! Check out Todd’s amazing album The River Inside of Trees to get an idea of his compositional style.

Liz Draper – bassist/badass (October 13 – present)
Liz and I both have backgrounds in classical music, but don’t really have a solid outlet to get our respective classical camber music fix. This duo is our solution to that problem, and so far it’s going great! We raided the Pertucci Music Library (imslp.org) and downloaded a bunch of classical duets, most of them for two cellos, and we’re working up some repertoire to record a little demo and snag some gigs around town. I’m thinking our musical stylings will be perfect for weddings, mitzvas, funerals, art galleries, punk rock shows, and whatever. Upright bass and cello duets are anything but common, and our diverse musical backgrounds give us a unique take on the classical genre, so I think this is going to be a really fun/successful project!

Jonny James and the Hall of Fames – americana/country western (October 22nd – present)
The first rehearsal for this band was just last week, and I couldn’t believe how good everybody sounded right out of the gates. We’ve got a killing crew of musicians who all do their homework, and guitarist/roommate extrordinaire Jon Ehresmann is doing a killer job band leader. The lineup is: Jon Ehresmann – Guitar/Vox, Cory Grossman – Cello/Bass, Mike Menard – Bass/Guitar, Cassondra Meyer – Vox/Percussion, Jacy Pelstring – Vox/Percussion, Matt Riehle – Keys/Vox, Samantha Sabroski – Fiddle, Bobby Stanton – Guitar/Lap Steel, Andrew Thornbrough – Director of Percussion. Our first gig is listed above (November 12th) and I have a good feeling that we’re going to knock the crowd on its collective ass with a tight sound and huge energy. We’re playing mostly covers from artists such as Wilco, Neko Case, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, The Band, and Tom Waits, to name a few, and sprinkling in some of Jon’s original tunes (which are amazing – duh). Keep an eye out for this band.

About a week before the premier of Harold Crumb (short film) Adam invited me into the studio to record some credits music, and the night before our session he emailed me a scanned copy of the part:

(excerpt of sheet music)

Initially I was really pissed because this is a pain in the ass to learn and none too simple to play – and I hate wasting peoples’ time in the recording studio with tons of bad takes. But once I played through it once I could tell it was a cool piece, it lays under the fingers surprisingly well and is somewhat intuitive, although very confusing at the same time. The premise of the three moving parts is that they’re all based on the same 2-bar sequence of notes, but offset by one 8th note (aka, a canon). And then there’s some transition material for the modulation to C# minor (every cellist’s favorite key).

I was a bit worried walking into the studio, but overall the session ended up going very smoothly and once everything came together we were all surprised at how well it turned out:

The above date is only the time that I spent on this project, whereas my friends Adam Conrad (music composer) and Christoper Jopp (writer/director) have put in COUNTLESS hours to create this film.

(cello part)

Check out the <trailer> and the video Chris shot of our recording sessions <here>.

(Adam Conrad/Dylan Jack)

I’ve done quite a bit of work with Adam playing his compositions, and he provided me with crucial support on my first composition project, so I was thrilled to have the chance to work with him on this production. Rehearsals and recording were a lot of work, as is necessarily the case with film scoring, but the musicians, recording technicians and other supporting artists made it an excessively positive experience.

(Ben Kelly)

The unexpected MVP of the whole process was Ben Kelly, who Adam had enlisted as our ‘rehearsal assistant.’ His job was to follow along in the score and take notes on reoccurring mistakes/rough patches/whatever, and to offer an outsider’s opinion on which takes were good, and/or how they could be better. Ben was absolutely the hero of each recording session – and he plays a mean bass guitar in gangster jazz band Sexy Delicious.

Directed by Paul von Stoetzel
Featuring Derek Meyer, Madelyne Riley, Marty Ruben*
Written by Nathan M. SchilzOrchestra: Cory Grossman, Cello; Jonathan Ehresmann, Guitar; Jeff Grady, bass; Nathan Schilz, piano*Courtesy of the Actor’s Equity UnionThomas, a former nutritionist, finds himself in a low place years after a terrible accident. He can’t sleep, and if he does, he is sure to come face-to-face with who he calls “the presence.” In the midst of a dream he meets Jade who has an unlikely request.

So my role in this has been rather hands-off, which is kinda’ nice for a change – I just showed up to the rehearsals, wrote down cues/chord progressions, and plugged in my musical two cents. Being hired as an improvising musician comes along with the added challenge of composing your own complementary music on the spot, every performance. But I’ve come to realize that it’s not necessarily harder or easier than the job of a musician who strictly plays music off the page, because in order to do [most] music justice you need to internalize it and understand it before expressing it. In the case of reading music one basically has to reverse-engineer the composed music (decompose it, if you will) in order to understand what makes it effective/affective, which requires the technical skills/knowledge of a composer. Or maybe I’m just rationalizing all of the hours I spent struggling through music theory class. Anyway, I think that in any musical scenario you just need to show up prepared, and there’s no reason for any style of musicianship to claim superiority. That said, improvisation does involve higher brain functions than reading music off the page, but who’s keeping score anyway?

So the show’s going great and we’ve got 3 shows this weekend, starting today at 4pm! And did I forget to mention that the acting is superb!? Come check us out!

]]>https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/nightmare-man-living-the-dream/feed/0corygrossmanScreen shot 2011-08-12 at 11.10.20 AMScreen shot 2011-08-12 at 11.12.04 AMLulu’s: will you marry me?https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/lulus-will-you-marry-me/
https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/lulus-will-you-marry-me/#respondMon, 08 Aug 2011 15:34:25 +0000http://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/?p=538Continue reading →]]>Lulu’s Playground just had a rehearsal last night after a seven-months-long hiatus and, as they say, absence [most certainly] makes the heart grow fonder. Trumpeter Adam Meckler literally proposed marriage to the band and brought up recording an album. Those were actually two separate events, that literally occurred. But the point is that I am incredibly excited to be playing with these fellas once again! Here’s a little video we made of our first time through a new tune I was just showing them – it’s only the very very end of Positive Rays, which I’ve already posted an audio file of.

So tonight is our first gig in 7 months, and it’s also Adam Meckler’s birthday party; I can’t imagine having more reason to celebrate! If you’re a Lulu’s fan or an Adam Meckler fan, come check us out at the Carleton Place Lofts around 10pm tonight.

]]>https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/lulus-will-you-marry-me/feed/0corygrossmanOFI Sketch 8/4/11https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/ofi-sketch-8411/
https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/ofi-sketch-8411/#respondFri, 05 Aug 2011 02:10:39 +0000http://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/?p=507Continue reading →]]>This is going for more of a hardcore, “I’m dangerous” kinda’ vibe. To me the cello almost sounds like a bari sax, which is hilarious, while at the same time terrifyingly awesome. There’s a lot more I wanted to add to this, but I’d rather see what the dudes come up with, rather than ruin it myself. haha

]]>https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/ofi-sketch-8411/feed/0corygrossmanOFI Sketch 8/1/11https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/ofi-sketch-8111/
https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/ofi-sketch-8111/#respondMon, 01 Aug 2011 07:41:33 +0000http://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/?p=485Continue reading →]]>Here’s a really simple loopy thing that might make a good tune – it’s just a bunch of Ma7 chords planing around but I think the complementary rhythms sell it. One problem is that it’s really difficult to solo over, another is that it’s horribly repetitive – but it’s going to be a hip hop beat so nbd.

This collaborative work of challenging-to-describe art was organized by Zachary Crockett, and served as the dissertation for his PHD in music composition (at the University of Minnesota). Months before I entered the process Zac joined forces with choreographer Vanessa Voskuil, and at her suggestion invited visual artist David Mehrer to the team. They’re all amazing so check out their respective pages!

Zac began the creation process by composing a recorded soundtrack that would serve as the foundation for the whole piece. In its totality the track was about 45 minutes of sparse, ambient soundscape divided into 3 sections by 2 climaxes of much denser, intense textures.

Based on an early draft, him and Vanessa began brainstorming themes and concepts off of which the work would be based through a long series of emails. This early draft was much more sparse than Zac intended for the final product, but Vanessa had very positive feedback about the expansive/open texture and convinced Zac to keep it lean/simple. Some examples of themes/concepts that arose throughout the process: ritual, expansive, earth, fire, light, sound, unity, negotiation of space, attraction/repulsion, etc., which led them to the title: “VOCA::Omni (Ritual #1).”

The sculptures (David’s creations) that Zac, Vanessa and David decided to incorporate into the piece all produce different qualities of light – my favorites being the 55 galon lamps and empty basin because they have the common theme of light as a volume, which I find very evocative. David’s sculptures really helped me get into the right mindset for this production because of how urgently they invite interpretation without imposing any definite guidelines on the substance of said interpretation. Every component of this performance was designed to do exactly that, and the unity of intention saturated the whole experience with a feeling of raw creative energy – rehearsals and performances alike. So at the first of only 4 rehearsals the sculptures and musical sound scape were in the late stages of development, but there was still a huge amount we didn’t know about the end product.

One of the components of the performance was a live musical aspect, and the instrumentation Zac decided on was: alto flute (Zac), tenor saxophone (Nathan Hanson), grand piano (Solange Guillaume), and cello (me). Zac had composed two structured improvisations for this production, and on paper they couldn’t be any different from each other. The first piece was a trudgingly slow chorale with very strict parameters, leaving very limited avenues for individual interpretation – in many ways the composition fits the tradition of ‘classical music,’ employing expansive phrasing, dramatic arrivals, resolutions of suspensions, beautiful melodic shapes and harmonic movements. This was layered on top of Zac’s pre-recorded track, and the combined texture underscored Vanessa’s fabulous solo movements. My biggest regret of the production was that I so unevenly split my attention between my own playing, listening to my fellow musicians, and watching Vanessa – with so little rehearsal time to get used to dividing my attention this way, my eyes just glazed over and went almost completely inside my head. I think it worked with the aesthetic, but it would have been more powerful if I could have interacted with Vanessa, instead of simply trusting her to react to the music.

The second piece that we played was a much more individualized structured improv. in the tradition of Pauline Oliveros, throwing (most of) the rules of the classical canon out the window and focusing on one simple concept. This was also played over the 2nd climax of the prerecorded soundscape as an accompaniment to Vanessa’s movements, but we musicians actually walked over and gathered around Vanessa during the shared musical/dance climax while playing our instruments, which was super intense. This was especially interesting to watch since Solange and I had to walk while playing cello and grand piano, respectively. haha. And even though these two pieces were so dissimilar, they both somehow perfectly supported the piece as a whole – I think. It’s really difficult for me to imagine the piece from the audience’s perspective, but I do know that the whole thing felt very unified from the inside, and all I could do was try and communicate that impression.

To me, one of the strangest/coolest aspects of this piece was that everyone was incorporated into the group movements. Vanessa designed the choreography around our limited/nonexistent dance backgrounds, and the primary goal was unifying the intention behind our motions, rather than defining exactly how we were articulating our bodies. Everything was based on interactions with David’s sculptures, namely the big white luminescent barrels; we touched/shook/climbed on them, moved them around the stage, walked around them and flicked their lights on/off. It was really bizarre for me to be performing in front of an audience without my cello in hand, but then again it really wasn’t. This piece reminded me that no matter what the style/content of the performance, the primary goal is to communicate your intention to the audience and everything else is just supporting that directive.

We have loose plans to perform this piece again this summer, hopefully outside on a beautiful starry evening, so stay tuned for any information regarding future performances. And keep your eyes/ears peeled for news of everybody mentioned above!